Recent Pew Research study: People get news from increasingly complex 'information ecology'

People get news through an increasingly complex “information ecology” involving multiple sources and types of media, according to the recent Pew Research study “How People Learn About Their Local Community.” The report (see interactive graphic) shows that 74 percent of those surveyed turn to local TV news at least once a week, followed by word-of-mouth (55 percent), radio (51 percent), newspapers (50 percent) and the Internet (47 percent).
Researchers believe that word-of-mouth information fills in the gaps that traditional media tend to miss, and the less a subject is covered, the more important word-of-mouth becomes.